


Guys Like Us Meet In College

by Lilley_lulu934



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Michael has anxiety, Slow Burn, jeremy gets migraines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25860439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilley_lulu934/pseuds/Lilley_lulu934
Summary: Michael has social anxiety and can’t manage college this year, he’s planning to take a year to sort himself out so he can apply for the next semester in the fall and in the meantime he’s got a job at 7/11.The only thing getting in the way of his year off, is his best friend Rich’s college roommate, Jeremy.Who might just be the most beautiful person Michael has ever laid eyes on.
Relationships: Brooke Lohst/Chloe Valentine, Jake Dillinger/Rich Goranski, Jeremy Heere/Michael Mell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

Michael huffed, adjusting the weight of the three boxes he was carrying, "Dude, why did you bring so much stuff?"

Rich dropped his own boxes and grinned, "Because," he replied, "This is gonna be the party dorm, gotta be prepared."

"Wonder what your roommate's going to think of that." the Filipino boy said, dryly.

"He'll be fine." Rich waved him off, "I'm just bummed you're not my roommate though, dude. Are you going to be alright this year?"

Michael sighed, he had been wondering the same thing. He had decided to not go to college, his social anxiety was too much for him to leave home and start the completely crazy adventure that was college, so he was going to take a year to sort himself out and then he'd apply to go the following year. 

It was one of the hardest decisions he'd had to make, but luckily his moms supported him no matter what, as did his amazing friends, Rich, Jenna, Chloe and Brooke. In the meantime, he had a job as a cashier at 7/11 to keep him occupied.

"I'll be fine." Michael reassured, "I might even join you next year! Don't spend your time here worrying about me and instead worry about your room because this is a mess, man!"

Rich looked around the small room, boxes full of his things were scattered over the floor, his clothes were strewn across his bed and his roommates bed, there was somebody else's gum under his desk and doodles, that he did not do, decorating the back of the door.

He wrinkled his nose, "Ugh..." 

Michael stifled a laugh, "New Jersey's finest!"

Rich then shrugged "Oh well, I've lived in worse. And here's to hoping I won't be spending much time in here and more time in that guy's dorm, remember the one we saw getting out of his car? Tall, wearing the sports jersey, probably really really good in bed-"

"Okay!" Michael interrupted, "That's about as much of you as I can handle this early in the morning, so I'm going to go check on how the girls are doing."

"Still can't believe Chloe and Brooke were allowed to choose each other as roommates." Rich said, rolling his eyes. "Oh and hey, if you see Jenna could you ask her if she's still got my phone charger?"

Michael nodded, and just as he was about to turn out of the doorway, he quite literally bumped into someone. 

"Oh, sorry!" a voice said, Michael looked up and saw a boy who looked to be his age hovering over him, hand outstretched. Had he fallen over? The boy had short, wavy black hair, the palest skin Michael had ever known someone to have and piercing light blue eyes. And Michael couldn't figure out why he had butterflies in his stomach. 

"Are you okay?" the boy was saying.

He blinked and shook his head slightly, "Uh, yeah I'm fine. Thanks." He said, accepting the hand and pulling himself up. Michael still starred at the boy, wondering why he felt so nervous and then it hit him. He had social anxiety so severe he had to skip out a year of education and this was a total stranger, the butterflies he felt were probably just from that.

"I'm Jeremy." He introduced, "I'm staying in dorm 326, are you my roommate?"

Rich, who had seen the whole thing happen, lit up and said, "Jeremy, my dude! Hey man, it's great to meet you. Sorry about the mess, that guy's Michael, he's not staying here but he is a friend of mine so you'll probably bump into each other a lot." he ended, wiggling his eyebrows that made Jeremy blush and Michael roll his eyes.

"Oh hey Rich, nice to meet you too. Don't worry about the mess, this place is cleaner than my room at home." Jeremy laughed slightly and turned to Michael, "Where are you staying?"

"I'm , um, not?" Michael replied shakily, "I'm just helping Rich get organised but I, uh, am not going to college. Yet! Maybe I will next year." He added.

Jeremy nodded but he seemed to be a bit upset by the news, Michael could sense he wanted to ask why but he appeared to have the decency to not ask.

"What are you studying, dude?" Rich asked, filling the silence. Michael had always been jealous of his ability to do that.

"Theater." he replied, starting to put some of his own boxes down on his bed instead of just holding them, "But I'm minoring in Teaching. What about you?"

"Health and Social Care, I'm hoping to be a social worker." The blonde said, not explaining he chose that career because he had suffered at the hands of abuse from his dad and he wanted to help other kids, so they didn't have to go through what he did.

While they were chatting, neither one noticed Michael had left. Jeremy then said to Rich in a hushed tone "Um, your friend, Michael, I didn't do anything to make him leave did I? Because if you guys are, like, together then I'm totally cool with that. I'm actually Bi-"

"Oh no, man." Rich said, cutting him off, "Don't worry about it, you're fine. Yeah, Mike's completely gay and I'm bi but no way, we aren't together, we're just bros. He has anxiety and a hard time with new people."

Jeremy grinned, looking relieved he opened his mouth to say something else but they were interrupted by someone appearing in the doorframe and knocking on the wall.

"Hey Jer! Christine and I are going to get pizza for dinner, wanna come?" 

Rich looked up from where he was organising his desk and struggled to hide the way his eyes widened. The guy was no other than the hot, tall guy they had seen getting out of his car. His voice was deep but light and carefree at the same time and Rich needed to know more about him.

"Hey, Jake." Jeremy greeted and Rich's heart soared, he now had a name to match the face, "Sure that sounds great." He caught Jake and Rich starring at each other and decided to do something about it, "Jake this is Rich, my roommate and Rich this is Jake, he's been a buddy of mine since fifth grade."

"Stellar to meet you, Rich." Jake winked and Rich sighed mentally. Of course he still used words like stellar, that was so fucking cute-

"Yeah you too, man." He played off coolly.

Jeremy grabbed a blue cardigan from his bed, "I'll see you later, dude! If you see Michael again, say goodbye for me!"

As they left, Rich heard Jake asking who Michael was. When he was sure they were gone, the blonde grabbed his phone and sent a text to Michael:

'Jeremy is bi and hot car guy is his friend! Bro, I'm so stoked for this year!!'


	2. Chapter 2

Jeremy, Jake and Christine sat at a booth in the back corner of Sbarro's Pizza since it was Jake's favourite. Jeremy didn't mind it either, especially because Jake's family knew the owner quite well, so the chef made a kosher pizza just for him. 

"How's everyone's first day's been?" Jake asked, taking a sip of his soda. 

"We've not even had our first lesson yet, Jake!" Christine exclaimed, "Although I am glad we're going to be in the same class, Jer." 

Jeremy smiled at her, "So am I." He had been exceptionally nervous to do theater at college but those nerves had lowered considerably since he and Christine found out they'd be together. They were, by no means at all, dating since she wanted to focus on her career and Jeremy saw her really as more of a sister. 

"I can't believe you're both leaving me!" Jake pouted sarcastically. 

Christine laughed and playfully punched in on the arm, "If you did theater in high school when we asked you to then you could have joined us."

"Nah," Jake shook his head, "Helping out backstage was stressful enough for me." 

"Yeah, the Criminal Justice Law major says theater is stressful." Jeremy remarked, "Dude, you can kiss goodbye to your party days and getting to know my roommate who I can totally tell you're in to."

Jake blushed, "I just thought he was pretty cute." 

"Am I missing something?" Christine asked, raising an eyebrow and giving the boys a look, "What's going on with your roommate?" 

"He's been kinda cool to me so far." Jeremy explained, "His name's Rich and when Jake came round my dorm to pick me up they were eye fucking each other so hard even I was blushing." 

"Wha- We had one conversation, Jeremiah!" 

"Sometimes that's all you need." He teased. 

"Oh like you with Michael?" Jake teased back, a sense of satisfaction at the look of betrayal of Jeremy's face.

"Who's Michael?" Christine cried, "How do you two know half the people on campus already!"

Jeremy sighed and took a long sip of his drink so he didn't have to answer. Okay fine, Michael was cute and sweet and his hair looked soft as fuck but, they talked for like ten minutes before Michael left without saying anything. Also Jeremy carried a lot of baggage he didn't necessarily want to burden anyone with, he wasn't ready for a relationship just yet. 

When Jake finished explaining to Christine who Rich and Michael were, Christine turned to Jeremy with a concerned look on her face, "Jeremy, are you sure you can handle a relationship right now?" 

He sighed again, "Michael's nice and all but I'm not looking for a relationship. I only stopped doing Squip's four months ago and I'm still recovering. I don't want to bring someone into all that."

In his senior year of high school, Jeremy had done a very stupid thing. He had severe anxiety, depression and he was desperate for a way to fix that, so he heard about this new drug called Squip's. They were little pills that were supposed to give you a really intense high and a major confidence boost. Almost instantly, he became addicted. Just taking a handful of pills a day and his life turned around, he was no longer fidgety or numb but pretty soon he became too addicted and pushed away Christine and Jake when they told him he should quit. 

He pushed everyone away, ended up failing all of his classes and it was actually his passion for doing theater that was his motivation to quit. For five months of senior year, he had been having ten or twenty of these pills a day but in the last two months, he just eased himself off of them. He managed to pull himself together enough to barely manage a place in college but he did it and now he was on the road to recovery. 

The withdrawal was extremely strong, in the first month he quit, he had panic attacks almost on the daily, then it was nausea that lasted for a month and now, he sometimes had chronic migraines. The migraines had been happening on and off for two months and they weren't looking to stop anytime soon. 

But it was okay, he could deal with it because he knew that he was never going back. 

"How long has it been since you've had a migraine?" Christine asked, always the mom friend. 

Jeremy shrugged, "Um, I had a minor one yesterday morning." 

"And you have painkillers in your dorm in case you have one when we're not there?" 

Jeremy smiled at how much she cared, "Yeah, I do."

At the end of the night, the three had went their separate ways. When Jeremy got back to his dorm he was exhausted and just wanted to fall down on his bed and never get up.

“Hey dude!” Rich greeted, he was sat up in his bed on his phone. 

“Hey,” he replied back, tiredly. 

“Guess what?” He lisped and without waiting for an answer he continued, “I was talking to one of my friends from high school, Jenna Rolan, she literally knows everything. She’s found a dealer whose selling these cool new drugs called Squip’s, if you want I can get you hooked up?” 

That sent a shiver down Jeremy’s spine, “No-No thanks.” He said, shakily, “I don’t want any and you shouldn’t either.”

“What?” Rich laughed, “Why not?” 

“Because it’s not okay!” Jeremy yelled, “Look man, I know we only met like today and you can do whatever the fuck you want but I don’t want to see that shit around here, got it?” 

Rich looked hurt, “Wow,” He said quietly, “Sorry for asking.” 

Jeremy sighed and laid down in his bed, facing the wall so he didn’t have to see Rich. He shouldn’t have lost his cool but maybe he could blame that on the withdrawal? 

Whatever. He was too tired, he’d apologise in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, please leave a review!


	3. Chapter 3

Jeremy woke up early the next morning, he had his first class at 11 but he wanted to be prepared so he was up at 8. 

Surprisingly, so was Rich. He didn't strike Jeremy as an early riser. The blonde boy was already dressed and showered, judging by his wet hair, he hadn't noticed Jeremy was awake and was rushing around. Probably to avoid talking to the pale boy. Jeremy couldn't blame him. 

"Uh, hey." He said, wincing at how croaky his voice was in the morning. 

"Huh?" Rich asked confusedly, he then turned around and saw Jeremy sitting on the edge of his bed, "Oh morning, dude." He acknowledged.

A heavy silence fell over them, the only sound was Rich shuffling around their small dorm room and the voice in Jeremy's head telling him to stop sitting around and do something.

He sighed, "Look man, I'm really sorry I got so worked up last night." 

Rich stopped what he was doing, and turned around to face Jeremy, "It's okay," he sighed, crossing his arms, "You're right. In high school I smoked a lot of weed, drank a lot and partied too hard and that showed in my grades. I don't want that to happen here so I'll stay away from Squips."

Jeremy debated wether or not he should tell Rich the full story, so he decided to give a snippet of the truth, "It's just that I have a, um, history with those drugs, it wasn't very pretty and I don't really want to see anyone else going through that." 

His eyes widened and he nodded knowingly, "Ohh makes sense. Don't worry bro, I've got my head screwed on this year." 

The pale boy smiled slightly, "So we're cool?" 

Rich rolled his eyes and grinned, leaning over to fist bump Jeremy, "We're chill." 

"So, uh, awkward apology out of the way," Jeremy laughed, "Why are you up so early?"

The blonde perked up, "Oh! Well, I don't know if this might freak you out or something, but your friend Jake came over late last night because you left your phone at the restaurant, he came to give it to you but you were asleep, we got talking and he asked me to get a coffee with him this morning. That's cool with you, right? He said it would be." 

Jeremy raised his eyebrows. He knew he was a deep sleeper but he didn't know it was two gay dudes flirting and planning a date right in front of him deep. His eyes scanned the room and, sure enough, his phone was on his desk. 

"Wow that happened quickly." Jeremy remarked, "He was talking about you at dinner last night but I didn't think he'd work up the balls to ask you so soon. That's great, man, I'm happy for you two."

Rich blushed, clearly wanting to know more about what Jake was saying but he didn't ask. "Thanks! I've got to go, I'm already late but I'll see you around." 

"See ya." Jeremy said, watching him go before finally standing up and getting ready to go. 

Right, he thought, he didn't have a theater class today because that started tomorrow. At 11 he had a two hour introductory lecture for teaching and education and then he could have a nap later because he was already exhausted and he'd only been up for 30 minutes. 

Time to start the day. 

*time skip to roughly 11*

Would you believe, even when he woke up two hours early, Jeremy was still late to his first lecture? 

He realised that he hadn't had breakfast when he left his dorm, and his stomach growling in the middle of a near silent classroom would be humiliating so he couldn't skip it. 

Then, he realised there was a 7/11 off campus, and it was only a five minute walk, so if he could walk there, pick up a bag of chips or something, walk back really fast and eat the chips on the way then he could maybe be on time. 

Maybe.

Thanks to his long legs, Jeremy made it to 7/11 in record time. He scanned the aisles, until deciding on getting cool ranch Doritos and walking up to the cashier and- 

“Oh hey,” Jeremy said, noticing it was Rich’s friend, Michael, behind the cash register. 

Michael looked up and seemed to notice who it was in front of him, “Hey,” he grinned, “Jeremy, right?” 

“Yeah,” Jeremy nodded, oh god that must have looked so lame, why couldn’t he act cool in front of this guy?! “I, uh, I didn’t know you worked here?” 

Michael shrugged, counting out change for the five dollar bill Jeremy had given him, “Only part time. And for something to do, I guess.”

Jeremy nodded again. 

“Where are you headed?” The Filipino boy asked. 

“Just class.” He replied, “I’ve got a two hour lecture in teaching and education.” 

“Really?” Michael said, “My friend is majoring in that. Her name’s Brooke Lohst and she usually wears a long yellow cardigan. Tell her you’re Michael’s friend and she’ll be really nice to you.” 

“Sweet.” Jeremy grinned, “Thanks man.”

Michael nodded, waving to him slightly as Jeremy walked out the door, “Bye.”

Turns out, Jeremy was only a few minutes late. Everyone was still settling down and finding a seat so it didn’t really matter and he had eaten the Doritos on his walk over so his plan seemed to work. 

He scanned the room for a bright yellow cardigan. He didn’t know wether it was because he wanted someone to be nice to him or because Brooke Lohst was another connection to Michael and he wanted to know more about the boy. 

Probably the latter. 

He finally spotted a blonde girl, sitting in the back corner on her own, she was wearing a yellow cardigan and chunky brown boots. There was an empty seat next to her that Jeremy took. 

“Hey,” he said to her. Oh god, this was probably really creepy of him wasn’t it? She probably thought he was hitting on her or something. But on the other hand, if he didn’t talk to her then the next time he saw Michael then Michael would ask if he spoke to her and if he said no then it would look weird. 

He mentally sighed. Well, he’d already said hey so he might as well stick with it. 

“Hi,” she smiled. 

“Um,” he was getting nervous, “Are you Brooke Lohst?” 

Brooke raised her eyebrows and had a questioning look on her face, “Yeah... who are you?” 

“Uh, I’m Jeremy! Rich Goranski is my roommate, I don’t know if you know him but he has a friend called Michael who told me that you were in this class and that I should say hello to you and-“ 

“Oh!” She interrupted him, probably for his own good, “Of course I know Rich and Michael! Did you say your name was Jerry?”

“It’s Jeremy.” He corrected, softly. 

Brooke smiled brightly back at him and Jeremy already knew they’d get along well, “Nice to meet you, Jeremy. Actually I think Michael did mention you on moving in day.”

“Really?” He asked. 

She nodded, “Yeah, he came to my and Chloe’s room, Chloe is my girlfriend by the way, and said that Rich had a really cute roommate and- oh my god, I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell him I told you that!” Brooke covered her mouth with her hands a flushed bright pink. 

Jeremy felt his own cheeks warm up, Michael thought he was cute too. “I won’t say anything.” He laughed slightly. 

She laughed too, “You know what we should do? We should get both of our friendship groups together. Let’s see there’s, me, Chloe, Rich, Michael, Jenna, oh and maybe that Jake kid because Rich likes him-“

“Jake is my friend.” Jeremy explained, Brooke raised an eyebrow, “Jake and Christine, I’ve known them since sophomore year. Jake really hit it off with Rich last night and they went out for coffee this morning.” 

“So we’re already morphing into one big room!” She exclaimed with a laugh, “I’ll text Jenna and see if she can organise us all going out for dinner or something. I swear, that girl knows everything and everyone.” 

“Rich said something similar.” Jeremy said, getting more and more interested in this Jenna girl. 

But what he was really interested in was joining Michael’s friend group and getting to know the boy better. 

Jeremy and Brooke continued chatting until the lecture started, Jeremy zoning out halfway through. And when it ended, he did exactly what he planned to do, went back to his dorm and took a nap. 

But this time he dreamed about a boy with tan skin, soft black hair and a red hoodie.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please leave a review!


End file.
